Fans of the Shin Megami series will be pleased to hear that there’s a new dungeon crawler in the series coming to us from developer, Atlus. Famitsu magazine recently announced that Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation is being jointly developed by Atlus and Sega for the smartphone platform.

Not much is known at the moment but we have heard that the story centres around the two factions known as the Liberators and the Acolytes. Stay tuned, hopefully we’ll hear more soon on this exciting development.

I love a good mashup in video games be it Fire Emblem and Persona on the Wii U or as in this instance, between Hyperdimension Neptunia and the Sega Hard Girls. Sega Hard Girls are moe characters that have been visualised from the Sega consoles of yesterday into really kawaii girls. Sounds weird but it works really well as in this case, Superdimension Neptune Vs. Sega Hard Girls from Compile Heart.

The plot of the game revolves around the two main protagonists of the story IF and Hatsumi Sega, the latter of which is a newly created character for this game. In the game, the characters are introduced to the grand library, a library that literally contains all the history in the world. There are supposed to ancient books that have the ability to rewrite history and change the course of events. Something has been occurring lately that changing past events and making history disappear as if it never happened. This begins to affect the world as parts of the world itself also begin to vanish as if they never existed.

And so kicks off a grand adventure where you’ll explore countess dungeons and lands with names of past Sega consoles. The Sega Saturn Era, Mega Drive Era, Game Gear Era and the Dreamcast Era. While you’re in the library, you can visit any of these Eras as you unlock them and can also change the game settings, buy items in the shop to help you in the game and other assorted options.

Let’s talk about the visuals which I have to say are simply some of the best I’ve ever seen on the Vita. From the colourful worlds and beautiful character designs to the lush cutscenes, this is the type of game the PS Vita was made for. It looks amazing and really draws you in and makes it extremely hard to put down. The backgrounds are rendered just as beautifully and the game has an impressive draw distance. You can see quite a long ways into the level you’re on without having to run there to make it appear.

Another new system that I was introduced to with this title was the battle system. As you traverse the terrain, you’ll see enemies which you can choose to encounter and enter a battle with or simply run away from. Upon choosing to fight, if you make first contact with your weapon, then you have the first attack in the battle. You have an action gauge in the bottom left of your screen which begins to fill with each attack you do. When the meter hits the red zone, your attack is over and it switches to another member of your party. However, you have the option to end your turn before the gauge enters the red zone by hitting the “R” button. What this also does is control how long you have to wait before it’s your turn to attack again after the enemies’ turn is over. This brings an element of strategy into the mix as it’s really unwise to just keep button mashing, taking all your characters into the red zone as you then have to stand there taking hit after hit from your foes.

As you battle, you have another percentage gauge slowly filling up to 100%. Once it reaches capacity, you can choose to enter Fever Mode just for that battle where your hits to the enemy cause more damage while at the same time, the damage you face decreases as well. Each of the members in your party have their own individual meters as well which slowly increase with each battle. These can be used to call powerful skills when you battle. From powerful fireballs which damage multiple foes to calling upon the ability to transform into a different form of your character which then unleashes even more damage with each hit. This probably sounds really confusing and I was a bit overwhelmed when I first started playing but it really does get easier with each battle, very fast. Each new section or ability you unlock in the game comes with its own mini tutorial from Histoire, the character who maintains and looks after the Grand Library.

The only thing I can say about battles is that they can appear a bit samey and repetitive but it’s fun knowing that you’ll soon have charge built up to unleash powerful abilities so the tradeoff is worthwhile. The music is pretty solid throughout as well, so much so that there’s also an option to play back the music which can be found in the Options. So if video game music is your jam, then give them a listen, it’s totally worth it!

I’ve only been playing for about 5 or so hours and have two characters in my party but I’ve noticed that there’s an additional two slots which I can only take to mean that more characters will be joining me at some point as the game progresses and becomes harder. I’m really liking this game, so much so that I had to buy the Limited Edition which came with some really cool stuff. If you want to see what that came with, watch out for the unboxing video I did which I’ll post very soon! And I’m also a fan for the Sega Hard Girls, I don’t know much about them but I do like that there are minds which have taken some of the best and iconic consoles and reimagined them as kawaii girls.

Project X Zone was one of the more exciting and versatile games on the Nintendo 3DS. The collaboration between Sega, Capcom and Namco Bandai brought together many characters from multiple fan favourite series’. I was a HUGE fan of the first game so when news of a sequel was announced, you could say I was excited!

Even better is the news that in the past 48 hours, a demo has hit the eShop with even better game play than the first game. This will definitely be a day one purchase for me! Here’s a trailer showing some awesome action.

Sega have revealed their lineup for Tokyo Game Show 2015 in a classic display of better late than never! Their lineup features some amazing titles such as a new Hatsune Miku game for both PS Vita and PS4, the updated Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax Ignition for the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita and the new Persona 5 from Atlus. Here’s the complete line up below. Sound off in the comments if there’s anything you’re really excited for.

Sony will be holding a “Hatsune Miku ‘Magical Mirai 2015” event in Japan from September 4 through to 6 and one of the items to be displayed is the Project Morpheus reality headset. Even better though is that Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia have revealed that they’ll be running the Sega feat. Hatsune Miku Project: VR Tech Demo for the headset.

The demo itself will consist of Hatsune Miku performing a virtual reality concert. Sony have previously shown off this tech along with the demo at last year’s E3 show in June. The demo will only be shown at certain times during the event, commencing at 1PM on September 4th, again at 4PM September 5th and then repeating at 9AM on September 6th.

If you’re in the area and want to go and check it out, keep in mind like a lot of things in Japan, it’s extremely popular. They’ll hand you a ticket but if too many people show up, it’ll be via a lottery system on the day.

Any diehard Sega fan will absolutely love the Dreamcast console and undoubtedly one of the best games to be released for the system was the JRPG, Skies Of Arcadia. Vadu Amka, a Belgian graphic artist, clearly felt the same way as he showed off this Skies Of Arcadia inspired Dreamcast he modded.

He explained how he went about it below.

I used lime wood I previously cut with a rotating cutter (called a dremel) for the hood. All the wood’s imperfections were first resealed with some light color wood paste, then sanded stained with mahogany stain. After that, I painted it with a blue and gray color before sanding it one more time to give it a more degraded and aged look. I waxed the hood and made it waterproof. I put inside a small grid, oxidizing it with ocher pigment called « natural earth shade » (synthetic iron oxyde). All the rest is an optical illusion made from several black and brown juices. What seems to be metal ring is, in fact, a leather band treated and painted with oxyde paint. I used the same pattern for the gamepads slots. I finally reproduced the logo with plexiglass and remolded it with some 2-component silicone slim before molding it in resin and painting it.